aCommerce CEO Hadi Wenas leaves to join John Riady and MatahariMall

Hadi Wenas, CEO of MatahariMall

Indonesia’s family-owned conglomerate Lippo Group announced today that Hadi Wenas, co-CEO of ecommerce service provider aCommerce in Indonesia, will join MatahariMall as CEO. The news comes not long after Lippo Group representative John Riady went on record saying that MatahariMall has a team of ecommerce superstars ready to race Lazada Indonesia for the title of the largest business-to-consumer ecommerce firm in the archipelago.

Wenas was also one of the original co-founders of Rocket Internet’s fashion estore giant Zalora, and aCommerce says it will continue to be the exclusive fulfillment partner of MatahariMall. To date, MatahariMall is the largest client for aCommerce in Indonesia. Adrian Suherman, aCommerce Indonesia’s co-CEO, will continue to run the firm in the archipelago, while Peter Kopitz, aCommerce’s group COO will serve as Suherman’s fellow co-CEO for an interim period.

“I am inspired by the commitment to the digital future by Lippo and feel very honored and excited for the opportunity to lead the company,” says Wenas. “MatahariMall has formed a solid team and I cannot wait to work together in realizing the vision of MatahariMall becoming one of Asia’s largest ecommerce companies.”

Lippo Group representative John Riady

See: Indonesia’s Lippo Group launches MatahariMall, invests $500M

“We are so excited about Hadi Wenas coming to the MatahariMall team. Wenas has the vision, leadership, passion, and operational excellence to run MatahariMall’s plan,” says Riady.

aCommerce Group CEO Paul Srivorakul says one of the positive things about Wenas taking a position at MatahariMall is that his firm will be able to more easily expedite client-customer bureaucracy.

“The approval process will be much better, the efficiency will also be much better,” says Srivorakul. “Hadi has a real passion for B2C businesses like what MatahariMall is. aCommerce is mainly B2B, and this will give Hadi a chance to do what he’s really passionate about and good at. He gained all these B2C skills from his prior experience at Zalora, too.”

Srivorakul adds that Wenas aims to accelerate MatahariMall’s growth, and that Wenas will personally invest into aCommerce’s upcoming series B funding.

Additionally, Google Indonesia’s former country director Rudy Ramawy will join Lippo Digital Ventures, the conglomerate’s new venture capital arm that has been active recently but elusive in terms of press coverage. Ramawy will serve as managing director for Lippo Digital Ventures and will assume the role of vice chairman for MatahariMall, according to a statement. Former CEO of Garuda Indonesia Emirsyah Satar will serve as MatahariMall’s chairman.

On March 25, Lippo Group announced a US$500 million investment into MatahariMall with the goal to reach a US$1 billion valuation within one year.